Play yards are used to contain and provide a safe environment for a child for sleeping or playing. Typically, play yards are collapsible so they can be stored or transported easily. Currently, play yards are manufactured with a frame that consists of a combination of assembled metal and plastic components with a fabric body that wraps around the frame to provide an enclosure to retain the child within the play yard. Play yards can be equipped with a bassinet assembly that can be supported by the play yard frame to establish an enclosed sleep area at a higher level than the bottom floor surface of the play yard to provide an easy access to the child without requiring the caregiver to bend to access the floor of the play yard.
ASTM (formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials) has adopted standards for the manufacture of structures, such as play yards, bassinets, cribs, etc., in which children are placed. One such standard (F 2088-08 6.6) establishes that a child, placed into a cradle swing in the most disadvantageous prone position, cannot create a bed surface that is greater than five (5) degrees from horizontal. Therefore, if a swing motion is desired for a child in a prone position, the surface on which the child rests must be maintained within 5 degrees of horizontal as the surface is moving in order to be in compliance with ASTM expectations.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a bassinet structure that will allow a swinging movement of the bassinet without exceeding the five (5) degree prone child ASTM standard. The use of a bassinet mountable on a play yard enhances the usefulness of the play yard by providing a sleep area for an infant which is easily accessible to the caregiver.
In play yard structures, the floor of the enclosure is typically a foam or padded bottom board that is positioned on top of rigid structural members to provide a comfortable support for a child placed into the play yard. When a bassinet is placed into the play yard and suspended by the play yard frame, the space between the bottom of the bassinet and the bottom board of the play yard is insufficient to position a second child. Accordingly, the bassinet structure would preferably be configured to discourage the placement of a child on the bottom board of the play yard when the bassinet is installed on the play yard frame structure.
It would also be desirable to configure the bottom board of the play yard to be utilized as the bottom surface of the bassinet structure. To permit the bottom board to be used in both structures, the size of the bottom board needs to be adjusted as the surface area of the bottom surface of the bassinet is smaller than the surface area of the play yard.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,048,135, granted on Sep. 17, 1991, to Chin Chen, discloses a swinging mechanism for a child's crib in which the crib is suspended from a horizontal pivot axis to swing in a pendulum motion. The crib rocking apparatus shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,769,641, issued on Nov. 6, 1973, to Marie Harper also provides a pendulum motion to a crib or bassinet. U.S. Pat. No. 5,274,863, granted to Roslyn Fountain on Jan. 4, 1994, teaches a hammock mounted for swinging motion on a playpen or a cot that has at least two sides extending upwardly from a bottom surface. The hammock structure is detachable supported by a plurality of cords emanating from the frame of the playpen. The cords can be positioned at the frame to permit a rocking movement of the hammock that can be induced into the hammock.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,615,059 granted on Oct. 7, 1986, to Waldemar Darowski discloses a rocking structure on which a crib or child's bed can be mounted so that a rocking motion can be induced into the crib or bed. The rocking structure utilizes a suspended frame to provide a rocking motion that keeps the crib or bed mounted thereon in a generally horizontal orientation. A rockable crib structure is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,742,960, issued to Yoav Shamir on Apr. 28, 1998, wherein the four legs of the crib structure are positioned on rocking supports that allow movement of the entire crib relative to the floor on which the rocking supports are positioned. A similar crib rocking apparatus is depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 4,258,446, granted on Mar. 31, 1981, to Irvin McAllister.
It would be desirable to provide an apparatus for suspending a bassinet from the frame of a play yard so that the bassinet can be swung gently relative to the frame of the play yard, preferably through a motorized swing mechanism connected to the bassinet.
It would also be desirable to provide a bottom board structure that can be converted from utilization on the bottom surface of the play yard to being utilized in a smaller bottom surface of a bassinet suspended from the play yard.